


Everything about my Heart Is a Crime Scene

by delabaissé (missyay)



Series: For the Better [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Activism, Depression, Eating Disorders, Gender Issues, M/M, Memory Loss, Modern AU, Sexuality Issues, sorry - Freeform, this doesn't start being about Enjolras until chapter 6 or so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missyay/pseuds/delabaiss%C3%A9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire gets to know life as the dull and boring thing that keeps him from having his peace. He intends to suffer through and see if whatever comes next is better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 9 November 2012

**Author's Note:**

> These are the drabbles from First Sights, arranged to fit characters. There was too much overlap going on, so I decided to dissolve First Sights into multiple fanfictions, one for each character, as I wrote new chapters. So if you've read First Sights, you'll recognise bits and pieces as you go, but the first chapter is a new one.
> 
> Title is from "Monster/Crime Scene" by Clementine von Radics

Grantaire knows life as the dull and boring thing that keeps him from having his peace. He intends to suffer through and see if whatever comes next is better. He suffers through kindergarten, primary school, and secondary school with little to no disturbances. He does well enough on his A-levels and somehow manages to snag a place at an art college.

His paintings are bright and lively and intimate and inviting, because why would you create blandness if you can create and have anything you could wish for (just this once)? He doesn't use art as an outlet for his bitterness. He funnels all of his hopes and dreams into it and it leaves him desperately yearning--but yearning is better still than the stone-still non-feeling that will capture and arrest him mid-movement, mid-drink, mid-thought, that will clamp down on him and have him prone on his bed motionlessly within minutes.

He thinks, sometimes, about how his parents would send him to bed without dinner. Thinks back to lying in his bed with a grim satisfaction derived from the hunger gnawing at him from inside, the churning of his stomach. It would be the easiest thing in the world, to stop eating. Those who would care aren’t close enough to witness it, and those who wouldn’t would kindly avert their eyes.

He overcompensates. He learns about the best place for Thai curry which will make your mouth water almost as much as your eyes. He discovers that a little hole-in-the-wall place with lacy curtains and cats strolling around for the guests to grab and pet as they please is the best place for blueberry muffins. He finds the best place for sushi just next to the red lights district, nestled into a corner between a table dance bar and a sex shop, where the waiter will stare at you with barely-contained disdain. It is worth it, though, and Grantaire likes people who won’t submit to the ghastly rules of politeness.

He pretends to like keeping those places to himself. He pretends they’re secrets he doesn’t intend to share, even though there’s nobody to pretend for, nor anyone to share them with.

He drinks too much, too often--but oh, how it provokes his creativity into reaching formerly unknown heights: His paintings become ecstatic, intimidating, harshly inspired; swathes of reds and blacks and angry streaks of bright colours. It provokes this from him until it doesn’t, and by then it’s too late to stop.

Grantaire stumbles from one art block to another, and in between two of those, he stumbles into Bahorel.

It goes like this: Grantaire is not a monster. Grantaire fancies himself a friendly person, a helper. However, he is also a coward, and his coordination is too shot at the moment for him to be of any assistance in a fight. So instead,  he watches from a safe distance as a burly, almost-bald-in-an-intimidating-way, man approaches four guys swarming around a girl that’s clearly out of it, stumbling her way down the road.

“Here’s what you’re going to do,” the giant says, “either you leave, or you get your heads bashed in.”

“She with you?” one of the guys asks. Grantaire hopes he’ll say yes, because that would be the easiest way to end this without an ugly fight.

“She’s a person of her own,” the man answers and Grantaire cringes in response. There’s a time and a place for calling people out on their misogynist thought patterns and this is neither the one nor the other.

“Then how about you leave her to it?” another says, a guy with a floppy haircut and a grin that’s trying to be sharp but is made wobbly from drink.

“I would be, if you weren’t trying to take advantage of her guard being down,” he says, impatient. “I mean it. Leave or I’ll make you.”

It’s an impressive statement and a bluff. Grantaire can tell. He hopes the others can’t.

But they can. And they do.

The man is taller than most and his build is rather impressive, but there’s four furious men trying their damnedest to fuck his shit up, and they fight dirty.

Grantaire averts his eyes. He doesn’t need the confirmation that dangerous idiots outnumber decent human beings. His gaze falls on the drunk girl, leaning on a lamppost with her eyes clenched shut in a particular way that suggests she’s trying her best not to vomit.

He pickpockets her and learns that her name is Cathy, she lives nearby and has twenty bucks to pay for a cab. He asks for a female driver.

By the time the cab arrives, Decent Guy is down on all fours, heaving and cursing, and the gang of misogynist assholes is a little worse for wear but triumphant enough to not mind their object of interest driving away to safety.

“Want me to call the cops?” Grantaire asks, edging towards him hesitantly.

“No,” is the choked answer, “they know me. I’m an aggressor. ‘S my own fault.”

A pause. The man spits and Grantaire is relieved to see that there doesn’t seem to be any blood involved. No lost teeth, no failing organs, no bad damage as far as he can tell.

“Thanks for making sure the lady got home alright.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire says, “least I could do. Sorry I didn’t help you, just I'm not that much of a fan of getting my head bashed in.”

“No problem, fighting’s not everyone’s cup of tea. ‘S not your duty.”

Grantaire doesn’t tell him that fighting is, in fact, very much his cup of tea. Just not when he knows he’ll be on the losing side, and the consequences will be to pee blood for a week.

“I live down the street,” he says in a moment of compassion. “You can recover at my place if you like.”

“Thanks,” the man says, and allows Grantaire to help him to his feet. He walks hunched over, taking small steps.

Guilt is an ugly thing, but knowing that you should be feeling guilty when you aren’t is worse. Grantaire decides to be grateful. He gingerly slings an arm around the man’s shoulders, and the man leans on Grantaire heavily with a quiet sigh. His body is a warm presence pressing into Grantaire’s side. Maybe Grantaire is a pathetic excuse for a human being, but for some reason this eases some of the knotted up tension he’d thought was an immovable aspect of his life up till now.

 


	2. 12 November 2012

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I am by no way an expert, so if anything I write makes you uncomfortable in any way, please tell me so I can fix it.

The tall man’s feet dangle from the edge of Grantaire’s couch when Grantaire checks up on him in the morning. Not having offered the stranger his bed makes Grantaire feel sheepish enough to attempt breakfast for him.

Attempt being the key word because his fridge is as close to empty as it gets. Grantaire finds one egg, a lone tomato, and upon raiding his cupboards, some honey and Nutella. He writes a post-it-note that says “NOBODY LEAVE THE ROOM. I AM OUT TO GET BUNS AND CROISSANTS”, and leaves to do just that.

His guest doesn’t wake up until Grantaire arrives back home, with an attempted stretch and a groan. Grantaire winces in sympathy and puts his bags down in the kitchen. “ ‘Morning sunshine,” he sing-songs, “I am in the process of making breakfast, so you’ve got a couple of minutes to compose yourself!”

He boils the egg, cuts up the tomato, and arranges both on a plate. He makes a pot of strong coffee and adds four sugar cubes to his cup.He notes that his guest has left for the bathroom and Grantaire has yet to hear any screams, so he supposes the peeing isn’t hurting too badly. Grantaire winces anyway, remembering his first and last drunk fight, after which he didn’t leave his bed for half a week. Although that was partly due to his shame, because he had definitely not been playing the hero in that fight.

His guest emerges just when Grantaire sets the last plate. His eyes roam over the table, blinking slowly. After a few seconds of silence, he offers Grantaire his impressive fist to shake. “I’m Bahorel, by the way,” he introduces himself, and Grantaire raises an eyebrow.

His last name has always been something to take cover behind to him, something that indicates a fight fought half-hidden from view, and so when he replies: “Georges,” and shakes the hand, it’s something of a mildly scolding peace-offering.

“Right,” Bahorel says, “it’s Bastien, actually. Sorry, people tend to call me by my last name. I do kickboxing and the coach is weird about it. Oh, and then there’s this group of friends, most of whose first names I don’t even know, no idea who started it.”

“In that case,” Grantaire shrugs, “call me Grantaire.” He could as well try and start over. Be someone else. Someone whose cup of tea is not fighting, but rather someone who will drag you to safety when you get into a fight that’s too big for you by a couple of sizes. Be Grantaire rather than Georges. Kind coward rather than disgusting drunk. Have his cup of tea be dark, sweetened coffee.

“Capital R!” Bahorel calls out, with noticeable pride of his own cleverness. Grantaire remembers being seven and trying to get his friends to call him that. His smile is bright and wide as offers Bahorel sugar for his coffee.

*

“Thanks again, man,” Bahorel says, trying to put on his boots without causing himself further harm.

“Nothing to thank me for,” Grantaire replies, “guys like you almost give me back my faith in the non-shittiness of this world, so making you breakfast was the least I could do. Really.”

“Almost?” Bahorel inquires, finally giving up on his last shred of dignity--that is to say, he sits down. He laces his boots with clumsy fingers, looking like an oversized toddler. “We gotta work on that. You remember that group of friends I mentioned? I bet you fifty euros that they’ll get your faith in humanity back to impeccable in no time.”

“I’m unconvinced,” Grantaire says, but intrigued despite himself. It’s been a while since he’s seen a bunch of genuinely good people at once.

“Well I guess it’s my job to convince you then,” Bahorel decides. “Thursday’s the next meeting, I’ll pick you up at five!” he says in a tone of voice implying the whole deal is settled. He gets back up with a wince. “See you then.”

“I guess,” Grantaire replies, eyebrows raised. Bahorel looks entirely unimpressed by his reluctance, offers him one final wide smile and tugs the door closed behind himself.

*

Les Amis (“Now if that isn’t an imaginative, novel name for a group of activists...” “Oh shut up, it’s to do with some inside joke or other, ask Combeferre or Enjolras about it if you must.”) turn out to be a rather diverse group. There’s the bald black man holding hands with, yeah, both a gorgeous curvy Hispanic woman and a scrawny white guy. Then there’s the absolutely-stunning-in-an indeterminable-way person hovering by the window who wears flowers in their hair who has Grantaire overflow with creativity at once. He sees people shake hands formally and cuddle shamelessly, and his first instinct is to stay as long as they will let them until his paintings live up to the originals, especially those of flower-person.

“I’m Jehan,” says flower-person as Grantaire is introduced to the group by Bahorel, who insists on calling him his “Lord and saviour,” which makes Grantaire cringe.

“Can I paint you?” Grantaire blurts out, making Jehan blush to the roots of their hair. Following up with asking “Also, are you a boy or a girl?” is apparently not the right thing to ease the awkwardness of the situation because Jehan now looks close to tears. Grantaire resolves to ask Bahorel if his question was insensitive. The whole situation is making him feel wrong-footed, like an oblivious idiot.

“You can call me  _il_ ,” Jehan says, “but  _elle_ works too, if you like, since French doesn’t really offer any alternatives. And I would love to have you paint me.”

Grantaire hadn’t known there were people who needed alternatives. He decides on _il_ , and tells Jehan as much, getting a blinding, if somewhat teary smile in return.

Bald black guy wants to be called “Bossuet, don’t even get into the Lègle-business, people seem incapable of spelling it right. Unless you’re into bird puns, in which case, knock yourself out.”

The curvy woman to his left is called Musichetta, and the scrawny guy to his right introduces himself as, “Joly, you’re hyperthyroidic, aren’t you?”

Grantaire’s hand flies up to cover his Adam’s apple. He tries a smile and says, “Yeah, took my doctor three appointments to figure it out. Are you just really into annoying illnesses or are you a doctor?”

“In training,” Joly answers modestly, “we were just talking about hyperthyroidism yesterday, so...”

So it must have been obvious. Grantaire knows he looks like shit. He has never been particularly pretty but now that his thyroid is throwing tantrums as it sees fit, it’s getting more obvious. He can’t really sleep, which makes for nice dark circles under his eyes. His hands shake, he’s painfully thin, and he sweats a lot. He spends a good part of his days googling symptoms and trying to determine whether or not his eyes are starting to bulge.

He’s taking meds though, and it’s supposed to get better within the first week of that, so Grantaire has made an effort to forget about it.

“Courfeyrac,” someone else introduces himself – an almost sinfully handsome man with a round face and a welcoming smile. He presses Grantaire’s hand warmly and says, “Don’t mind Joly, he’s been pointing out diseases in and around us for as long as he’s been here, it’s second nature at this point.”

“Right, sorry,” Joly says, “I tend to forget that people don’t like having their illnesses pointed out to them, or others. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Grantaire assures him. Courfeyrac turns and beckons two other people over, one of whom is almost ethereally beautiful, which only serves to emphasize the other’s decided averageness. Grantaire itches to paint the contrast: The first an image of everything every person on earth has ever been programmed to find beautiful - blond curly hair, high cheekbones, full lips, blue eyes, the whole nine yards; the other forgettable with his mousy brown hair and glasses if it weren’t for his eyes that look awake in a way that makes Grantaire feel vaguely threatened.

The beautiful one holds out a hand for Grantaire to take. It’s warm and dry, and Grantaire feels bad for inflicting his own clammy hand on them. “Enjolras,” they say with a voice like a massage, deep and addictive. Grantaire asks, carefully, “ _il_ or  _elle_?” because although biologically  _probably_ male, if he takes the voice into account, Enjolras looks almost completely androgynous, much like Jehan, and Grantaire doesn’t want to step on any toes.

“ _Il_ ,” Enjolras says, with a small smile.

“Right, sorry.”

“It’s quite alright, I appreciate your asking,” Enjolras says, “although of course you shouldn’t base on looks whom to ask and where to assume pronouns.”

“Well then what the fuck am I supposed to base it on, instead?” Grantaire asks, feeling vaguely off-balance.

“Just don’t. Ask everyone.”

“I’ll be sure to,” Grantaire says sarcastically, turning to the other one with the terrifying eyes.

“Combeferre, male pronouns,” he introduces himself, and Grantaire huffs out a laugh, shaking his head.

Enjolras’s eyes narrow, and Grantaire hastily excuses himself and flees to where Bahorel is standing at the bar.

“Bahorel,  _what_.”

Bahorel hands him a beer. “What what?” he asks, but there’s a glint in his eyes that suggests he knows exactly  _what_.

“I feel like everything I say hurts someone’s feelings and if it doesn’t, they’re still angry anyway because it could have under different circumstances. Oh my God, Bahorel,  _what_.”

“Yeah, it takes some getting used to,” is all Bahorel has to offer.

“How do you do it? Also, what should I have said instead of ‘are you a boy or a girl’?”

“’Which pronouns do you prefer’,” Bahorel answers instantly, “because your question implies that these are the only two options. If this is about Jehan reacting weirdly to being asked, that’s just him being grateful for getting asked at all.”

There are more than two genders. Grantaire gives himself a few gulps of beer to get used to that new bit of information.

“So Jehan’s not a transsexual but not a man either,” he summarises after some time.

“Yeah, the umbrella-term is genderqueer or non-binary. And if you want to narrow it down, bigender is the one Jehan feels most comfortable with out of the bunch.”

“Fucking hell,” Grantaire says, because there have been people with genders he didn’t even know existed until just now. “I feel like the most ignorant prick the world has ever seen.”

“You’re not,” Bahorel offers, along with a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Believe me, I was the same. Worse. They just kept introducing me to new terms until I gave up on everything I’d thought I’d known for certain and asked them to educate me right from the beginning.”

Grantaire doesn’t think he’d be willing to go that far, even though they do seem like a lovely bunch, if a little scary. Funnily enough, Bahorel is the one he’s the least scared of.

He resolves to just stop questioning things people tell him. After all, who is he to argue that, no, there are only two genders and you have to pick one? It’s not like Jehan’s hurting anyone. Live and let live. He can do this.

(He also resolves to paint them. Do a huge mural in their honour. And find out their first names.)

And then, Enjolras starts talking – talking is not the right word, he is  _giving a speech_  and Grantaire momentarily forgets everything about names, quite possibly even his own.

Enjolras speaks with certainty, with vigour, withinspiration and determination. In short, with everything Grantaire lacks. He can tell that Enjolras is making an effort, trying to get Grantaire on their side, trying to impress him.

Grantaire is intrigued, not with the decimation of homophobic slurs in football stadiums, but with Enjolras himself: his upright, unfaltering posture, his inspired words, and his clear but harsh voice. He wants to draw him – not his body, that’s almost boring in its beauty, but rather his character. When the meeting is over, Grantaire doesn’t even pretend to be interested in the cause, he just comes up to Enjolras and asks: “What’s your first name?” It worked with Bossuet, so he figures he has a chance of success with straight-forward questions.

“I go by Enjolras,” Enjolras answers. So much for that.

Grantaire supposes he needs a better plan.

He sacrifices a page of his notebook to said plan, writing down in neat script the full names of everyone who is willing to tell him. The list consists of three, so far, but he is quite confident that he’ll solve the mystery in no time at all.

**\-          Bastien Bahorel**

**-          Jean “Jehan” Prouvaire**

**-          Léon “Bossuet” Lègle (Lesgle? Laigle? Whatever)**

When he’s done, he decidedly doesn’t think about how this means that he’ll come back and listen to this bunch of idealists talk revolution just because he, inexplicably, wound up liking them.


	3. 23 November 2012

Life stops being boring once Grantaire starts regularly attending Les Amis’s meetings, and befriends Bossuet and Joly.

For instance, there’s that one time Joly calls him and tries to tell him that Bossuet appears to have lost his short time memory. Emphasis on tries: There’s a lot of gasping and shouting and interrupting involved, and Grantaire doesn’t really get the extent to which Bossuet has no idea what’s going on until he comes over and finds himself face to face with him. He’s clueless, but absolutely calm, if only to present a nice contrast to Joly, who looks like he might start crying at any moment.

“Hi, Grantaire,” Bossuet says, leaning in the doorway. “What are you doing here? Do you know what’s going on with Joly?”

“I suspects it’s to do with your amnesia,” Grantaire says carefully, and Bossuet just repeats, not sounding particularly troubled, “Amnesia?”

Joly appears behind him, urging him to take a glass of water. “I keep telling you, you’re not drinking enough!”

Bossuet makes to take a sip and promptly forgets about it. “What’s wrong?” he asks, his creaseless expression giving way to a frown.

“You keep forgetting, Bossuet, Jesus, we’ve been over this, it’s like there’s a hole in your head, I’ve never heard of this before, not when you’re still that young and haven’t even hit your head or anything... It’s not a stroke,” he adds, turning towards Grantaire, “I checked and he can smile and lift his arms and talk just fine, so it can’t be that, he just doesn’t remember!”

Bossuet turns the glass in his hands. “But I remember you and Grantaire, so that’s something,” he says slowly. “How did you notice, anyway?”

“You didn’t pick me up at the clinic like you were supposed to, and then I called you and you were – like – this. And of course Musichetta is still working, God she’d know exactly what to do...”

“Don’t worry, Joly, everything is going to be just fine,” Bossuet says, moving to clasp Joly’s shoulder and rediscovering the glass of water in his hand. He unceremoniously puts it onto the narrow shelf next to him, but then seems to forget what he wanted to do that required him to set it down in the first place. Instead, he turns around to Grantaire and asks blankly, “Where are we going?”

“That’s it,” Grantaire says, “I’m calling an ambulance. I don’t think public transport would be the best thing to inflict on you right now.”

“What do I need an ambulance for?” Bossuet asks, as Grantaire starts dialling.

Joly answers patiently, “You’ve lost your short time memory, you keep forgetting...” he trails off. “I really don’t want to do this for the rest of my life,” he says as if he’d only just come to this conclusion.

“I remember you, though, and Musichetta, too,” Bossuet says, “don’t worry, Joly, it’ll turn out alright like it always does.” He succeeds, this time, in pulling Joly close into a one-armed hug. “Your breathing’s all weird,” he states, and Joly stifles a hysterical laugh in his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m in 78, Green Street, with a friend of mine,” Grantaire says to the lady at the other end of the phone who just asked him to state his emergency, “who has lost his short-time memory.”

“Sounds like a very me thing to do,” Bossuet allows from where he seems stuck in his embrace with Joly. Neither of them seems to mind.

“How old is your friend? Are they injured in any way?” the lady asks, and Grantaire says, “No, he seems to be fine physically,” then turns to Bossuet and asks, “How old are you?” both because it seems like a good question to ask someone who’s suffering from amnesia and because he genuinely doesn’t know.

“Twenty-two,” Bossuet answers muffledly, which Joly confirms with a nod.

“Oh,” Grantaire hears the emergency call lady say when he passes the information on to her, which is never a good thing to hear from any kind of professional helper. “We will send an ambulance on the way. I need your and your friend’s name.”

Grantaire gives her their details, then hangs up and goes to sit down in the kitchen. Joly and Bossuet don’t let go of each other until the ambulance arrives. By the time the blue lights shine through the windows, Joly looks almost cheerful again, and Bossuet has stopped frowning.

*

Riding in an ambulance with a mildly confused Bossuet and a vaguely worried Joly proves to be one of the most hilarious things Grantaire has ever done.

None of them has lost their cheer, and Bossuet chats idly with the ambulance woman, repeating himself a dozen times but never asking why he is there in the first place. He looks comfortable, and Joly leans over to Grantaire and whispers, “this happens _a lot_ ,” confirming Grantaire’s guess.

“I am my health insurance’s worst nightmare,” Bossuet says for the fourth time, and Grantaire inclines his head.

“Am I repeating myself?” he asks for the seventh time, and Grantaire hasn’t the heart to say yes, but Joly is ruthlessly honest.

“Yes you are, Boss, dear, and it is saying a lot about your joke-telling abilities that Grantaire and Mlle Merlain here have laughed at the same story all six times you told it.”

Which is the truth; in fact the last time had Grantaire double over and Mlle Merlain wheeze with laughter; and Bossuet looks pleased.

“Was it the one about that time I ended up sharing an ambulance with Professor Blondeau?” he asks, “because that is one of those stories that get better the more often you hear it.”

He is getting better, slowly but steadily, goes longer periods without going blank and asking what it is that makes Joly fret, although that could be because Joly has stopped fretting.

*

At the hospital, they get through immediately, because nobody has ever heard of such a case before, and they want to make sure it’s not a stroke.

It isn’t, and Bossuet gets an MRI (though not without killing his credit card in the process because he forgot to rid himself of his wallet) and then has a chat with a very nice doctor, who tells him that his condition isn’t unheard of, but uncommon enough to be entirely unexplored. The MRI scan looks completely normal, nothing out of the ordinary, and she’s certain that he will recover his ability to remember as well as some of the memories he’s missing at the moment. After that, they are dismissed.

“Fuck me,” Grantaire says, impressed, when they are on their way back home. “When you said you had the worst luck in the world, I thought you were exaggerating.”

“So did I, to be honest,” Bossuet says with a disbelieving upwards-tilt of his lips. “I’m starting to doubt that, though.”

During the bus ride, Bossuet comes up with more little facts about his day as they get closer to their place, to the point where they can almost reconstruct the entire day except for a blank spot between Joly calling him and Joly arriving at home.

Bossuet and Joly approach the whole thing like detectives, as if there’s an important piece of data hidden away in Bossuet’s brain, and Grantaire lets them infect him with their excitement upon discovering that, ah, right, Bossuet had worried about not being able to catch the bus and pick Joly up from the clinic, maybe that was what had triggered it?

“Stay the night,” Joly says when they arrive at home, “there’s lasagne in the fridge, and we can have a film night and pretend nothing happened. I’m sure Musichetta won’t mind!”

Grantaire shrugs and says, “If you’re sure you don’t want your privacy...”

“Grantaire, please stay. I’d feel better if you were around,” Joly says firmly, and Grantaire is not blushing. He is not.

Joly pulls him into a hug then, and okay, yes he is, but Bossuet is the only one to see it, and he may silently laugh at him but he also mimes zipping his lips. Plus he might forget anyway. “Thank you for your help today,” Joly whispers into his shoulder.

“I didn’t do anything,” Grantaire protests.

“You let me take care of Bossuet and took care of anything else that needed doing, which was exactly what I needed, so I’m thanking you, now shut up and accept it!” Joly says right on top of his words, and Grantaire decides not to argue the point.

When they settle down on the couch with their plates full of lasagne later that evening, their running commentary on the film they’re watching effortlessly changes narrators as if they had never done anything else. Joly’s bright laughter and Bossuet’s deep chuckle fill the room, and Grantaire starts reconsidering the word ‘friends’ for the first time in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I swear I didn't make Bossuet's condition up; our neighbour got it and apparently it actually is completely unexplored, nobody knows where it comes from, but it goes away after a couple of hours.  
> I figured that of course Bossuet would worry Joly by getting the most obscure and rare kind of disease that not even he has ever heard of.


	4. 3 December 2012

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not really satisfied with this chapter, but then, I don't really know what I expected it to be. I'm not overly fond of my characterisation of Jehan anymore, but I committed myself to this when I wrote my first snippet, and now I can try and add depth, but I can't fundamentally change him, so have this?
> 
> Thanks to 1boo for helping me out in my absolute cluelessness where any and all visual arts are concerned!

Jehan models for Grantaire as he said he would, and from the way he goes pink and quiet around Grantaire, Grantaire guesses he either likes him too much or not enough for this sort of intimacy.

Grantaire, in an effort to be his new and better self, makes an effort to have his flat appear lived-in rather than worn down. He clears away his bottles, save for two beers.

Jehan, when he arrives, doesn’t want the beer, and Grantaire clamps down on the triumphant feeling that comes with the realisation that he can have both.

He tries telling Jehan that he can keep his clothes on if he’s more comfortable that way, but Jehan says, “I trust you,” already shimmying out of his sparkly-pink skinny jeans and neon green dotted shirt. (Grantaire silently thanks God, because Jehan has an atrocious sense of what goes together and what doesn’t. Each of the articles of clothing he’s wearing at any given time would work as the single eye-catcher out of an entire outfit; Jehan’s entire _wardrobe_ seems to consist of highlights and nothing else. Grantaire doesn’t think Jehan owns a single plain coloured shirt. Painting him clothed would have made it a lot harder to focus on what he intended the painting to look like.)

Grantaire has Jehan lie down on his couch, with his back facing the beholder: he snaps a couple of pictures from various angles because he’s almost certain that Jehan won’t want to wait for him to finish his entire painting, not when he’s naked and tense and unable to even look around.

He outlines Jehan’s slim waist and his narrow hips and the knobs of his spine and his ribcage that fails to contain his love properly: it seeps out in a steady stream, affecting everyone around him. Jehan loves deeply and earnestly and evenly, and Grantaire is tempted to try his luck with him. (But Jehan said, _I trust you_ , and Grantaire is not sure what that means, so he doesn’t.)

He sketches a curtain of fine hair and one high cheekbone, a slim neck and bony shoulders. He says, “You are a beauty, Jehan,” and discovers that the blush goes down to Jehan’s chest and lower, when Jehan says, “thank you,” in a low rumble. Grantaire doesn’t tell him how much he loves it when Jehan’s voice does that; he tells the paper instead, sketching Jehan a third time in inking pen and giving his form back some of his wiry strength in the form of shadows. “Do you do sports?” he asks, working on the sinewy muscle of his upper arm in between sips of beer.

“Kapoeira,” Jehan answers, and yeah, that makes sense.

“I’d have guessed Judo, or dancing,” Grantaire admits. “I did fencing and kickboxing and ballet in Collège,” he adds, for no particular reason.

“Why’d you stop?”

“My parents stopped paying for it, I guess,” Grantaire shrugs. He supposes he could get a part-time job and earn enough money to keep doing at least one of those, but. He can’t exactly fool himself into thinking he’d actually go every week when there’s nobody there to make him. He uncaps the second bottle and takes a long swig.

“Parents,” Jehan sighs into his cushion, heavily.

“They suck,” Grantaire agrees whole-heartedly. He has to actively fight to keep in a rant about parental alienation that is sure to take a sharp turn into fucked up myth territory as soon as he stops paying attention.

“And then they don’t,” Jehan adds. “Or one does and the other doesn’t, but still won’t defend you because standing between two loved ones is not something they thought they’d signed up for when they decided to have a kid, and I get it. But.”

“Still,” Grantaire picks up, “sucks.” He limits the amount of words he’s allowed to use in a sentence to six, which has the added benefit of making him think about what he’s saying before he says it. He’s being Nice. He’s being Grantaire, rather than Georges. Besides, it is about time he actively listens to someone rather than smothering them in his own rambling.

And sure enough, Jehan suddenly explains, “My father kicked me out as soon as I got my BAC. Nice way of showing his pride for my excellent grades.”

“Fuck,” Grantaire says sympathetically, “You broke off all contact, then?”

“I still talk to my mum,” Jehan says, “On occasion. She’s beating herself up about it, and I can’t in good conscience say that I want her to stop.” Grantaire covers his back in freckles, stark against his white skin. He doesn’t shade the blush, but he is severely tempted. He outlines, instead, the puddle of clothes on the floor.

“Been there,” Grantaire says, “I spend my Christmases alone now.” Grantaire seriously considers throwing the six word sentence rule overboard, but then pride gets the better of him and he continues, “Which is better. And that’s saying something. Since lonely Christmases are my nemesis. The fucking bane of my existence.”

“Oh, you should come to ours,” Jehan offers, brightly, almost turning around. “Eponine and my place, that is. You haven’t met her yet, but she’s wonderful. And I suppose we could invite Marius, he’s not talking to his remaining family either.”

“Marius?” Grantaire asks, quite certain that he doesn’t know anyone by that name. He adds a little detail to the close-up sketch, Jehan’s long lashes, dark with mascara, where they touch his cheek when he closes his eyes.

“Courfeyrac’s roommate. He came around a few times, but got into an argument with Combeferre and Enjolras, about bisexuality, I believe. It scared him off, but we still meet him sometimes in strictly non-activist settings. He’s sweet, you’d like him!”

Grantaire thinks about it, though, really, it’s not a very hard choice.

“He dislikes bisexual people? Or just doesn’t believe in us? ” he asks, just to be on the safe side.

Jehan shrugs. “Combeferre made sure he’ll keep that sort of bullshit to himself. I think he’s just a very black-and-white kind of person. Very orderly, you know? He likes a nice and plain and easy world-view. I think he was happiest back when he thought that sexual orientation, gender and general character traits were defined by your biological sex and that was that, but then he found out his father was gay, or something, and that sort of turned his whole world upside down. I don’t really know what happened, Courfeyrac won’t tell us the whole story, but that’s what it sounds like. And just as he got used to it, just as he was all for supporting gay rights, he learns about bisexuality, and it’s just too much, you know? And then I come along and he just gives up. I think he just decided to keep his opinions to himself so he wouldn’t have to change his world view all over again. So he prefers to believe that I am a man who likes to wear dresses, and he can just about live with that, but. You know. As long as he doesn’t vocalise it, I can’t really lecture him on the subject, and to be honest, I don’t really want to. He’s a sweet person, Marius, and he won’t hurt me, or anyone for that matter, so. I’m focusing my energy on people who are actively hurtful.”

“Mh,” Grantaire says, and to be honest, Marius sounds better than most people he knows. As long as it isn’t him who will have to keep his mouth shut, he thinks he can live with him, possibly even be friends with him.

And besides, there would be others. A Christmas with likeminded strangers is still better than a Christmas in his flat on his own, so he says, “Sounds like a good plan,” and sees Jehan’s cheek bunch up with his beaming smile.

“All done with you, for now,” he adds after a moment, realizing that he is keeping Jehan in what must be an uncomfortable position after all this time. Jehan gets up slowly, stretching.

“Can I see it?” he asks, and unhurriedly reaches for his jeans and underwear.

“Sure, if you like,” Grantaire replies, handing him the sketches. “I can do the painting alone. You probably don’t like lying still.”

Jehan’s eyes widen as he looks at the outlines up close. Then he surprises Grantaire by hugging him tight, still shirtless. “They’re perfect, Grantaire, thank you,” he whispers, and Grantaire hesitantly touches his shoulders, calloused fingers over smooth skin. “They’re just sketches,” he says, embarrassed. Jehan hooks his chin over Grantaire’s shoulder and touches his cheek to Grantaire’s, briefly, before pulling away.

 “And I really don’t mind lying still and talking to you all day long. Actually, that’s a rather nice prospect.”

Grantaire tries a smile and pretends to take a swig from his long-empty bottle. “If you want to?” he says. “You could come back tomorrow.”

*

Jehan is back the next day, and suffers through the whole process that is Grantaire Painting A Thing. He doesn’t even flinch when Grantaire breaks his six word rule and his serpent-like sentences gradually morph into lindworms. Instead, he helpfully nudges Grantaire into the vague direction of the point he was trying to make whenever he gets sidetracked.

Jehan effortlessly folds his answers into the silences that occur when Grantaire is taking a breath or a drink or remembers his attempt to listen, and Grantaire finds that he thinks about asking him out more often than he should.

Only, Jehan wouldn’t know what hit him when Grantaire inevitably hulked out on him as the addicted, downbeat mess he was, and that wouldn’t be fair.

So Grantaire keeps himself in check.

Even as Jehan presses a kiss to his cheek when he sees the finished painting for the first time, and murmurs, “it says so much more about me than I ever could.”

Even as he finds out that Jehan’s shyness doesn’t extend to nudity.

Even as Jehan gives him a potted plant along with a couple of euro notes in return for the print of the painting he gave him – it’s a cactus, only bright orange in colour, and the notes are folded into little cranes. Grantaire sets the cactus on his windowsill and prays silently for it to survive the harsh conditions that are Grantaire’s care. (Here’s hoping that his care isn’t worse than the desert, Grantaire thinks, pouring himself a drink.)

Even as Jehan looks kind of disappointed when Grantaire remains pointedly friendly in the face of whatever Jehan’s idea of flirting is.


	5. 25 December 2012

Jehan and Eponine’s apartment, when Grantaire sees it for the first time, is cramped in the best possible way; a hodgepodge of little statues and slim books and potted plants. The walls, where they’re visible in the cluster of postcards and posters that have been put up, are a bright orange which fades to blue towards the ceiling and merges into red towards the floor.

“Is it a sunrise or a sunset?” Grantaire asks Jehan, who answers solemnly: “It’s a forest fire. Eponine said I’m not allowed to paint the smoke, but it is. It’s supposed to stand for humanity as a whole.”

“Because at our smallest components, we’re indistinguishable from a forest fire,” a husky voice recites, vaguely amused. It belongs to a dark-haired, curvy girl who’s leaning in the doorway. She shakes Grantaire’s offered hand briefly. “As are trees and rabbits and bacteria and fungi. I’m Eponine,” she adds, as an afterthought.

“Grantaire,” Grantaire replies. “That’s an odd first name you’ve got.”

“Yeah, my mum is into fantasy novels, that’s where she got it. Sadly, she’s also into fraud and robbery, hence why I don’t go by my last name instead.” She pauses, thoughtful. “I mean, my parents are both horrible and sully my last name in equal measures.”

Grantaire feels oddly reassured. “Well, I hope I’m welcome to the club of broken homes, then.”

“You are. Jehan won’t shut up about you,” she says, and Jehan, predictably, blushes.

The doorbell rings, and Eponine goes to buzz Marius in, who is tall and whose face is equal parts freckled and honest. His clothes are worn out, and the heels of his shoes peel off, but he doesn’t seem to be aware of the cold.

He absently kisses Eponine on both cheeks and shakes Grantaire’s and Jehan’s hands with a grip that is hardly a touch, then takes off his shoes and lines them up next to the door before he comes in.

Grantaire feels like he knows him already: He’s the kind of person who feels out of place until he falls in love and actually is out of place only after he falls in love. He’s probably impossibly private despite the fact that everyone can guess what he’s feeling at any point by the look on his face, and always absorbed in daydreams. A kind fool. Grantaire decides to like him rather than make his evening as painful as possible by blathering on about his conquests, a decision he’d deliberately saved up until now.

They trudge into the kitchen, where there’s a pot of Bolognese sauce cooking. It smells like everything Bolognese should be. It’s the fanciest Christmas dinner Grantaire has had in ages.

-

“I’ve got presents for you,” Marius announces proudly, after they’re done with the dessert – chocolate chip ice cream with strawberry sauce on top. Grantaire doesn’t need love if he can have meals like this every day instead.

He hands out envelopes to Eponine and Grantaire, and a badly wrapped, heavy packet to Jehan.

Opening his, Grantaire finds a voucher for a tiny Vietnamese restaurant that he’d meant to check out for ages. “You’re not Mathieu in disguise, are you?” he says, “Because when he recommended this restaurant to me, he had this almost evangelical zeal. You know, like I’d have to go to hell if he didn’t manage to convert me.”

Marius shakes his head. “No, Jehan said you always ask everyone what they think is the best restaurant in town. This is where I go to treat myself when I’ve got spare change at the end of the month.”

Grantaire feels oddly touched. “Thank you,” he says, and Marius nods, like he just got graded for an important project.

Eponine’s present turns out to be a book token. “You said you like to read,” Marius says apologetically, “But I didn’t know what, so I thought maybe you want to decide for yourself. But I can recommend something, if you like, and then you can decide for yourself if that’s something you want!”

Eponine hugs him, and Marius pats her back awkwardly.

Jehan gently unwraps his present, revealing a fictile tea warmer. It’s made of little people holding each other’s hands, and Jehan beams at Marius like it’s the single most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Grantaire goes to get his drawings, and everyone else scrambles around, and it’s all a bit too nice and cosy for Grantaire’s taste. He gets himself a bottle of wine (and a glass, because he’s being sociable and a good guest).

-

He’s slowly getting a little tipsy by the time Jehan procures a bottle and declares a game of Truth or Dare.

It starts off harmless enough with Eponine asking Marius about his teenage crushes.

“I had none,” says Marius, grey eyes wide. “I was kind of afraid of girls till age twenty-one, actually.”

“Oh,” Grantaire coos, “what happened then?”

“You have to wait till it’s your turn,” Eponine snaps and snatches the bottle out of his hands. Marius spins it and it lands on Jehan, who picks truth.

“Tell us the most mortifying thing that’s ever happened to you,” Marius prompts.

Jehan considers this for a moment. His makeup is smudged, dark circles around his eyes that only serve to emphasise their almost terrifyingly bright green. He says, “You know, when you’re me, you have to adjust your definition of mortifying to survive.” He drags a hand through his hair that’s coming out of the tiny bun he managed to fit it into, hanging around his face in loose strands. His cheeks are burning a bright red from the combined weight of all of their gazes upon him, but his voice is booming. “Though there was that one time I was scribbling a poem onto a scrap of paper in math and my teacher read it out in front of the whole class, and it was, you know, _explicit_. It didn’t occur to me until several years later that none of them understood what I meant by it, they were just giggling because they thought poetry in itself was something to be ashamed of.” He flashes them a grin and spins the bottle. It lands on Grantaire, and Jehan’s eyes settle on him, earnest and determined.

Grantaire is about 90 percent sure Jehan is going to ask him why he’s so adamant on avoiding Jehan’s advances when at the same time he sees Jehan the way he painted him, and he can’t answer that, so he picks, “Dare.” His voice is a mess already, and Jehan’s lips curve up into a smile.

“I dare you not to move,” he says, and Grantaire goes completely stock still.

Jehan crawls over to him and settles into his lap, knocking aside the bottle in the process. He brings his lips up to Grantaire’s and says very quietly, “You can move now.”

His breath is warm on his face, and his hair tickles Grantaire’s cheek.

Grantaire leans in.

It’s a nice kiss, Jehan’s fingers carding through his hair, the tip of his tongue flicking against his lower lip – Grantaire opens his mouth, and his mind conjures up an image of Enjolras’ flat, unimpressed stare.

Grantaire is used to fending off images of disgusted or disappointed looks by people who have zero say in his sex life. It’s a thing that happens, he doesn’t know why, but he fights it with all his might. He doesn’t want to care about what people might think about whatever it is that he gets up to. It’s none of their business, but apparently his subconscious has yet to get the memo.

Just, it’s usually his parents, or teachers, or the policeman who collected him the last time he got roaring drunk and caused a fuss. Not one of his _peers,_ however terrifying and virginal they might be.

Grantaire closes his eyes and focuses on the kiss. It’s a completely consensual situation, they’re both adults and free to do as they please. It’s ridiculous to presume Enjolras would in any way interfere, if he were present. Jehan’s heartbeat flutters against Grantaire’s palm, reminding him of the canary he used to hold in his fist when he was eight and didn’t know that catching and holding and petting canaries made them unhappy and unhappiness made them die sooner. Jehan’s mouth is warm on his.

Jehan deserves the best kisses.

Grantaire makes sure he gets them.

When they break apart, Eponine claps slowly. She’s smiling, but as soon as Jehan turns around to tell a beet red Marius to _open your eyes already, it’s over_ , she throws Grantaire an appraising look.

Grantaire squares his shoulders against it. He knows that look – she’s searching him for faults and lies. He could make it as hard as possible to find them.

Grantaire proceeds, instead, to get as drunk as possible, until the night is a blur of colours and concerned glances, until he finds himself standing on Jehan’s coffee table and quoting Shakespeare, then Darwin, then throwing in fun facts about Kristen Stewart, because there will always be people who manage to be incredibly famous and even more misunderstood at the same time, and it’s no use, is it, if you can be heard and read and quoted and treasured by billions of people for hundreds of years and still not be _understood,_ then what is the point? What is the point of anything?

Maybe he falls asleep after that, or maybe he adds something else to the pile of Embarrassing Things he did and that he doesn’t remember in the morning. It doesn’t make a difference. At some point, the exact extent to which you’re acting wildly inappropriate stops mattering. Grantaire is closely acquainted with that point. He passes it often enough.

Jehan stops flirting after that, and instead offers his help.

Grantaire declines.


End file.
